#417 – Cash Is King

Chris Gammell: Hey guys, one quick announcement before we start the show today. Today's episode is actually about business, but about 50 minutes in, I start talking about something I wanted to mention up front too. There's going to be a KiCad conference in Chicago in April of 2019. And in planning for this, the first and foremost thing that we need is speakers. So if you're a KiCad user and you want to be participating in what we're calling KiCon, please see the show notes. There is an application to give a talk. We'd love to have you there. We're looking for people to eventually attend and sponsor and all that other stuff, but we're looking for speakers first and foremost. So if you're interested, KiCon, April 2019 in Chicago. Thanks a lot. This is The Amp Hour Podcast. Released November 25th, 2018. Episode 417. Cash is King.

Dave Jones: Welcome to the Amp Hour. I'm Dave Jones from the AEV blog.

Chris Gammell: And I'm Chris Gammell of Contextual Electronics. What's up, nerd? Not much, nerd. It's the holidays here. Well, the start of them here, at least. It is Thanksgiving in the States.

Dave Jones: Oh, Thanksgiving. Right. Yes. What is Thanksgiving?

Chris Gammell: It is the, yeah, it's a U.S. holiday based around, like, the people discovering the United States.

Dave Jones: Oh, that's right. Yep. Right. Yeah. That's not Chris. Basically being safe. You have a Christopher Columbus Day, don't you?

Chris Gammell: I don't personally celebrate it, but yes, it is a thing here. Right. Okay. Why don't you personally celebrate it? Is that not a... I'm not a big fan of Chris Columbus myself. No, okay. Right. Okay. Right. Yeah. But this is a little bit different. This is more about, like, the pilgrims coming over much later. Ah, right. Like 1700s or something like 1600s. Mayflower, blah, blah, blah. Right. It's been a while since I've been to, like, with the... It's a lot of, like, eating turkey and then, you know, eating yourself stupid around here. You know, it's a... That's the main part of the holiday. And I'm down with that. I celebrate that wholeheartedly. Gotcha. Whole stomach... Whole stomach-ly. Yeah. Yeah. So, that's good, though. But what it really is is, like, we're just kind of... It's like, oh, okay. I see the finish line there. I see, you know, the Christmas holidays are after that and then New Year's. And then it's like, oh, yeah, then I got to start doing taxes and... Right. All that other stuff. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Speaking about all that other stuff...

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Can today's show be about business?

Chris Gammell: I think partially, at least. I think we should... Oh, partially. Yeah, of course. We can prompt people up front. It's going to be about business, but around electronics business. And I think that the things you're going to talk about are things that a lot of our audience will deal with if they're in a similar place. I could speak to it from the consulting side of things, but that'll be a slightly different thing.

Dave Jones: Yeah. That's... Yeah. Consulting is just like, you know, hand-to-mouth living kind of expenses and stuff like that, right? It's like, you know...

Chris Gammell: You're wrapping newspapers around your feet. You're shuffling down the street. You're like, sir, do you have any PCBs you need laid out?

Dave Jones: We'll... We'll... We'll key cad for food. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. The old cardboard sign. Yep. Exactly.

Chris Gammell: Yep. So, what's going on with you, though?

Dave Jones: Recent things happening. I've realized again that cash flow is king.

Chris Gammell: Yes, it is. Yeah. Yes. So, what does this look like for you? Is this part of your retail business or part of your design business or what is this? Or your media business, I suppose?

Dave Jones: Well, this is just part of... Yeah. It's part of my business because I do all three kind of thing. Sure, sure. And if you don't... You know, like I always like having a large cash buffer for, you know, when you're buying and selling stock and doing things like that, you know, and we'll get into credit and stuff like that, then you just sort of have to have that sort of thing. And when you've got that and you're comfortable and you become blasé about the whole thing, you know? But then if, like, you know, things all go in one direction, like, you know, and normally things like, you know, spread out. It's like an average, you know, like you get some income here and then some, you know, there'll be some expenses out here and it all sort of averages out. But, you know, often... But that's just an average. Often, you know, everything will just skew to one side and, you know, there's not much coming in and everything's going out and you'll get hit with a whole bunch of stuff at once. Right. And you can put strains on the cash flow side of things.

Chris Gammell: The whole bank account. The zeros and the ones. Yeah.

Dave Jones: And it can hit you incredibly quickly. You know, if your taxes are due and you're, you know, you've got some, like, you know, supplier debt obligations and other, you know, sorts of things you've got to meet and it all comes at once. And then you can go, oh, wow, where did that come from?

Chris Gammell: You know? I think the thing that always gets me is, like, so I think about things in terms of unit prices, right? Where I'm like, oh, well, that thing only costs, you know, a hundred bucks to prototype or, you know, even four or five hundred bucks to prototype. But the thing about retail or prototyping and, you know, pilot things like that, you know, you start multiplying and, you know, so if you have a hundred dollar prototype or a hundred dollar cost to... So say I'm selling something for a hundred or I'm buying something for, like, say, a hundred bucks to make the math easy, right? Right. But I want to sell 200 of them. It's like, damn, that's 20 grand right there. That's like, that is a big chunk of cash, you know?

Dave Jones: Exactly. Exactly. You know? And this is a reason a lot of Kickstarters go out of business, you know? Right. Poor cash management. They just run out of cash, you know?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Well, I think the thing is, like, well, we could hire someone and then we could also buy all the prototypes and then we could do another prototype. We could hire someone again and we could do all this other stuff. We could pay for branding, pay for videos, whatever. And it's like, at the end of the day, I think the thing that they're not counting on is the, you have to pretty much prepay for all the units that you're actually going to sell. You know, that's... Yes. Yeah, that's right. That's the hard thing to think about.

Dave Jones: Unless you can do it in 30 days and then get a line of credit, which we might, which we'll eventually go into. But yeah. And it's tough. And if you actually go in and have a look at my accounts, like I just got my accounts from my accountant who also just charged me a fortune to... That's one you definitely pay though.

Chris Gammell: Come on. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: And, well, because I switched accounts. My accountant actually retired, right? Oh, okay. Like four or five months ago or four or five months ago or whatever. And, right, so he handed everything over to this new guy who I've been, you know, getting up to speed with. So there's extra expenses there in getting up to speed with a new accountant. And of course, they charge you by the hour. They're not affixed, you know, like once a year kind of, you know, you can get two different types. I like the more hourly one, you know, like so everything's itemized so you know exactly what you, you know, so you know that if you phone them up, it's going to cost you, you know, a hundred bucks.

Chris Gammell: Right? Right. Kind of thing. Yeah, but sometimes it's nice if you don't think about it until later. Yeah, if you don't think about it. So, yeah. Yeah, if you try and cheap out on some of that stuff, it's like, oh, well, I didn't want to ask, but then you ended up spending five hours researching something online that you sort of just paid for.

Dave Jones: Yeah. I don't fall into that trap. I do, you know, if I need to. But, you know, from the accounting side of things, everything runs fairly smoothly. You know, once a system's in place and they know how your business works, then it pretty much takes care of itself. So, anyway. Yeah, so that got all handed over. What was I talking about?

Chris Gammell: You said your costs of your new accountant and not sure. I started thinking about accounting systems as well. Yeah. How much of that do you do yourself? Do you do any of the accounting yourself? No. Zero. So, someone else like logs in and does all your cash?

Dave Jones: The account, my accountant not only does my accounting, but does my bookkeeping as well. It might be called something different in the US here. It's called bookkeeping, which is, you know, keeping all year. No, it's the same thing. Oh, yeah. That's what I was going to say. Yeah. So, I got my, you know, quarterly because here we have a quarterly thing. Actually, I'm taxed both monthly and quarterly and yearly, which is weird. So, I'm actually taxed three ways, three ways to Sunday, right? So, I have monthly installment activity statements. Then, I have quarterly business activity statements and they want their money up front. You know, like you eventually, it's not like I'm paying more tax. Like, I eventually sort of get it back and stuff like that. Yeah. It's all the same amount. Yeah, yeah. And then, it's the yearly, of course, you'll have the, you know, the big hit yearly at the end. And, which is where you want your company to effectively make no profit, right? Because you don't want to pay tax on the profit.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, right.

Dave Jones: So, you try and extract it all as wages and, you know, other expenses, right? So, you want the company to make as little as possible in theory. Unless you're, well, that's like a small business like this. You know, if you operate in a large business, of course, you know, you want to make a profit. Or, if you're looking to sell your business or something like that, you know, it needs to be, it needs to look profitable. And that kind of stuff. But, yeah, it's all about minimizing tax legally, of course. Of course. Spreading your, you know, your wages across, you know, things. And, anyway, yeah, so I'm looking at my quarterly activity statement. And I'm looking at, like, I don't remember buying half this stuff. You know? And there's so many.

Chris Gammell: That's a different problem, Dave. Yeah.

Dave Jones: I know. But there's almost like two transactions a day on average or something. It's insane.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. What kind of stuff, though?

Dave Jones: I could probably call it up. But it's just unbelievable the number of transactions. All these little small transactions, especially automated ones. Oh, that stuff. Yeah, for sure. That you just don't think about because you've set up your bank account and it comes out automatically. Or your credit, you know, card, it comes out automatically and stuff like that. And it's just remarkable the things that you spend money on. You know, most of them are valuable.

Chris Gammell: I was going to say, this isn't probably as big a problem for you yet. But for me, like, it's so easy to buy stuff on Amazon that, like. Right, right. You know, like the other day I was just like, oh, like little vacuum pickup things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Or to assemble it.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I just buy, you know, just buy one of those. Yeah, I'm doing a lot of that. Nine bucks. Yeah, if you need something for the lab, yeah, nine, ten bucks. But you do that five times a month and there's 50, 100 bucks a month.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, exactly. Right, right, right, right. Yeah, it's like a self-control type thing as well. I mean, and like, to be fair, the legitimate business expenses and there are things that, you know, you probably will use for the lab. So, like, that's all good.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah, no, yeah, exactly.

Chris Gammell: You know, if you had a management layer above you, right, like, not saying that you're going to do that, but like, I remember my old days when I was in a company and it was like, oh, well, I have to, like, get it approved and I have to, like, ask for this. Paperwork and trickle. And it's almost just like the bureaucracy kind of prevents the ease of transaction there. And it's like, oh, I guess I'll just make do with what I have, you know? Right. And for better or worse, you know, whatever. Yep.

Dave Jones: Anyway, so, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, so that'll nibble away at your cash flow and just up your overhead of, like, having to do more transactions and your bookkeeper, I don't know if they charge by the transaction as well, but, like, they've got to go and put all that stuff done.

Dave Jones: Oh, no, no, it's more of like an hourly thing. Like, at the end of the month, how many hours does it take them to totalize everything and, you know, extract everything?

Chris Gammell: Got it, yeah.

Dave Jones: And things like that. So, yeah, it's just an hourly rate kind of stuff. But, yeah, like, man, ultimately, like, you're not going to fix any cash flow problems by, you know, saving a dollar here and there because you bought these little oddball things for the lab. You know, it's more, you know, it's bigger stuff, especially when you're in the manufacturing business and you're buying, you know, lots of parts for prototypes or for, you know, actually production runs and stuff like that.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dave Jones: And, yeah.

Chris Gammell: I think I've mentioned it in the show before, but my, like, but my amazement when I went from a hardware company to a software company and just, like, the difference in, like, I mean, honestly, just cash flow stuff. And some of it was, you know, company culture as well. But going from a company that, like, is a hardware manufacturer and just the margins are tighter because you have to buy all the parts, you have to have the cash flow freed up, you know, it's just a different style of company. Whereas a software company is more about, you know, make sure your employees are happy, having everything, you know, set up for that kind of thing. And then it's about what is the ingenuity you can come up with. It's basically turning brain power into dollars, you know, and obviously there's marketing and all the other things on top of it. But there is very little dollar, very few of the dollars are reserved for, you know, cash flow heavy operations like manufacturing. You know, that's just a totally different thing. So, yeah. Especially when it was, like, an on-site manufacturer, that was an even bigger deal.

Dave Jones: Got it.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: But it's a tough business, you know, like, and sometimes if you don't, you know, get a handle on it, you know, as I said, when things all go in one direction, then, you know, you can find yourself in quite a spot of bother.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Well, I think even just from the psychological, like, the seeing the swings, right? So, like, being like, I had a lot of money in that account and now I don't. And even though I understand why it's gone, that doesn't help all the time.

Dave Jones: No, it doesn't help when you get hit with five large, you know, half a dozen large expenses all at once, you know. Right.

Chris Gammell: It's like that security blanket gets ripped off, you know. You're like, oh, but I had all that money sitting there.

Dave Jones: And sometimes you forget. Like, for example, buying my multimeters, for example, they're a two-month lead time, right? So, from the time that I place the order, you know, the stock is not available until two months later. And it's like, you know, sometimes I just, you know, like, all the other sort of stuff is happening. And then all of a sudden they'll send me an email saying, you know, your 500 meters are ready. Please pay us, you know. And you go, whoa. Josh, yeah, forgot about that. Yeah, I ordered those, didn't I? You know.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, that was probably me. Yeah, definitely probably me.

Dave Jones: And if you do that two or three times and they all come at once, you know. Yeah, definitely. It can be an issue. Right.

Chris Gammell: Well, I mean, so is there anything you can do in that case where you're basically the – you're almost like a wholesaler at that point or retailer, I guess, you know, somewhere between those two.

Dave Jones: Yeah, exactly. Well, there's two things to do. One is to manage your systems better, like get an ERP system, you know, for example, which can help out large companies use these ERP systems, which are – what does ERP stand for again? It's resource planning. Enterprise resource planning. Something like that. So it plans, yeah. So it allows you to plan out not only, you know, like, yeah, product pricing, cash flow, and, you know, income expenses and all that sort of jazz. So at any point, you can see exactly where you stand. Like you know you've got X amount of expenses coming next month and stuff like that.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, you know, that's one thing that I did not understand at all before I started actually using – so like, I mean, to be fair, in the past I used like – I tracked my expenses. You know, I had like spreadsheets for all that stuff. That was a simple way of doing things. But like now I kind of started to get – so I've been doing more cash flow heavy things, not like what you're talking about, but definitely, you know, I'm buying a lot more stuff for clients. I'm getting paid by clients months later, like stuff like that weeks later. Or it's not like a transactional credit card kind of thing. And I realized one of the things that the systems is good for is basically tracking the difference between like what I'm actually owed versus what I owe versus like what I actually have. Like those are all three very, very different things. And like that's kind of the basis of accounting as far as I understand it now. It's like you're basically trying to get a better picture of all the things that have and will happen so that you can actually – and you could play with those numbers if you really wanted to – like you were saying, look good one way or another. But really it's more of a health of the business type of thing. Like if I don't have enough money in the pipeline being – if I have net 30 terms, right? Net 30 being like the people that I'm charging have 30 days to pay. Well, I need to know that 30 days ago I charged them and that they should be paying in this amount of time and I might have cash at this point. You know, it's like – yeah, it's a little stressful.

Dave Jones: So, yeah, something like an ERP system will give you visibility of that into the future so that you can know, oh, like next month is – it's going to be a problem. But if I just delay the payment to that person by two days, then this other money will come in first and I'll be sweet, you know. Right, right. Yeah, stuff like that. But as I said, like if you operate your business with a large cash buffer, you can just average out, like smooth everything out. And if you build your business up to have a cash buffer like that, smooths all out and then you don't have to worry and you don't need a system like that because you just rely on the fact that, you know, on average there's enough coming in, there's enough coming out, you know. It's like a big – you know, like – It's a capacitor, right? It's a big capacitor. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But occasionally – Big old bucket of cash. Yeah. And, yeah, so you don't need those systems and you could argue that for a small, you know, almost one-man band type, you know, organization like we are or, you know, anyone out there just, you know, running their own little kit hobby business or something like that. It's probably, you know, overkill. Yeah. But, yeah, it's –

Chris Gammell: Well, so, like, from your perspective, like, so the things I think about is, like, the things that you could do to, like, lower this effect, like you said, you're going to be – you know, you're okay with all this. It's just more of a mental thing. But, like, the things you could do is, like, if you were allowed to take money sooner from a customer, which I don't think you're willing to do, you then could have cash on you. Yeah.

Dave Jones: I'm not a big back order guy. Right. I'm not a fan of back orders.

Chris Gammell: And I think that that actually – there are some restrictions in the modern day of, like, you can't do it for more than – at least maybe in the States. I'm not sure other places. I thought it was, like, a 30-day restriction. You can't charge and hold the money for more than 30 days. Oh, really? I think it just, like, changes, like, you get taxed on it or something weird.

Dave Jones: Oh, okay. Right.

Chris Gammell: I just know that on a lot of sites, they're, like – so, like, Airbnb, right? They started being, like, well, we'll charge you closer to your actual reservation. Right. You know?

Dave Jones: That's right. So –

Chris Gammell: So that's one thing you could do is you could try and take money sooner, but your clients probably wouldn't like it. You know, all of the people that buy from you probably wouldn't like that. The other thing you could do is the dreaded – oh, here we go. You could be lean, Dave. Oh, I could be lean. Right. But this is actually, like, a decent – so, like, a lot of the manufacturing processes, the reason they talk about lean is because they're, like, well, you don't want to have a crap ton of stock sitting around. So, like, if Dave went and bought 10,000 multimeters and they sat on the shelf, that's just, like, effectively stock that's sitting there rotting and it's not worth anything. Well, it's worth a lot, but, you know, it's not doing any good. And so the idea is that you try and make each order smaller and smaller. So now you're not ordering 500 meters. You're ordering 10 meters, you know?

Dave Jones: I have to do that because I actually – I've negotiated prices where I don't really get a discount whether or not I buy 50 meters or 500. Like, I don't actually get it cheaper. But the problem is is there's a long lead time on them. So I've got to remember, you know, I've got to have almost, like, an automated system in place to keep track of my inventory and my average sales levels and know then to automatically place another purchase order, for example.

Chris Gammell: Right. Right. And this is where, like, I think forecasting comes into play.

Dave Jones: And you can't do – I don't think you can do that manually because you're always going to ignore it. Oh, look, I'll do that next week. And then you're out of stock, you know? So you just forget to do it. Things get – you know, you get preoccupied with other stuff. If you're going to do that, you need an automated system, I think. Yeah. Or some form of automation.

Chris Gammell: Well, I think this is what a lot of the business-y types are. Oh, the big ones have. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, no, I meant actually just, like, the people that are, like, doing operational-type stuff and financial-type stuff. What they're doing is, like – so they'd be looking at, like, your numbers from last year and being like, oh, well, in November, because of all the Christmas traffic, you have a bunch of people trying to buy meters. So you should put your order in in August, right, so that you have the stock there. Right. You know? Yeah.

Dave Jones: So it's – it's a – like – Dave, you should just – you should hire a business person. That's what you should do. I could hire a writer, hire a manager. That'll solve it.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, you should hire a consultancy, you know? That'll solve the problem. They'd love to take your money. You have extra cash in the bank? We could take care of that, sir.

Dave Jones: Well, let's talk about the – because we said, like, different solutions. We talked about one there. Well, the second one is, of course, lines of credit. Yes, right. And we – like, I don't have any lines of – like, I probably maybe should, but I don't have any lines of credit with my component supplies, i.e. the digi-keys and mouses and all the rest of them, or with my – or with the manufacturers of my products. Right. So it's like I – I basically just put in a – how it works is I put in a purchase order, say, you know, I want some more multimeters, put in a purchase order. And then they go, yep, fine, thank you very much. And they spend their two months making them. And then they send me an email, as I said before, saying, hey, they're – we're about to ship. Please, please pay us. And I pay straight away. And then – so all that money is soaked up, right? It comes out of my business, and I don't get that money back until I've sold all of that stock, which could be over the next month or two, right?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I think that – well, some of that, I think you are getting a little bit of a line of credit there because you're not asked to pay anything up front when you make the order.

Dave Jones: Oh, true.

Chris Gammell: So, like, you are being offered some amount of terms there without it being stated, but –

Dave Jones: I guess, yes.

Chris Gammell: That might be the Dave Jones discount, you know.

Dave Jones: Yeah, no, no, but what I'm talking about is that they send you the parts. Like, what credit – actually, what a net line of credit is, is that they will send you the stuff without taking your money. Because you've proven yourself to be a reputable business and you always pay. Therefore, they're willing to send you the stuff first. And this is famously how Steve Jobs and Apple got their start.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: If you know the story there.

Chris Gammell: I do, but you can repeat it here if you'd like.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah. Well, you know, the original Apple one, you know, they were in the garage and they wanted to make these things. But they didn't have the money to buy all the PCBs and the parts and everything. So they went to their suppliers, said, hey, would you like – you know, like Steve Jobs, like, phoned up, you know, and he's pretending to be, you know, some big hotshot businessman and stuff. You know, he was really good at that sort of stuff, which is why he ran the business side of things. And he pretended to be a hotshot. And they said, hey, would you like a 30-day net? And he had no idea what that was. And he said, yeah. And then he realized that he could get all these parts for free up front and he doesn't have to pay for 30 days. So they crammed to get – so they got all their parts, they assembled their computers, and they sold them to the bite shop all within 30 days. So then the bite shop would pay for the boards up front and then they could pay their suppliers. And that's famously how Apple got their start. If it wasn't for 30 days net credit, they wouldn't have done it. Right.

Chris Gammell: I thought they gave net 10 and then the parts suppliers gave net 60 or something like that. Something like that. It was definitely that arbitrage between, like, the getting the parts and then selling it before. And that's effectively what we were talking about earlier. Like, if you could take money up sooner, that would be a thing. But that's not always the case.

Dave Jones: Whereas my manufacturers or DigiKey won't send me the parts unless I pony up the money. Like, I could set up the account. I just, you know, haven't bothered. And it's just another thing to remember to pay down the track. It's like, you know, once again, you know, it's another extra layer on the business side of things.

Chris Gammell: Well, this is something that I was looking at too because I've been making lots of prototypes and just things like that. And I started looking into, like, oh, well, DigiKey does it, Arrow does it. All the big distributors can do it.

Dave Jones: All of them do it. Yeah, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, can do it. And I started looking into it. And then I ran into something interesting that I hadn't ever seen before. It's called the DUNS number, D-U-N-S. Have you ever heard of that?

Dave Jones: I've heard about it, but I don't know the details.

Chris Gammell: So, basically, it almost feels like a better business bureau kind of thing. It's like a business credit kind of thingy. And, like, basically, you can register your business with them. I didn't know anything about it. Basically, I was looking at the DigiKey page. And they're like, hey, do you have a DUNS number? I'm like, I have no idea what that is.

Dave Jones: I've had to, yeah, I've had to, like, supply that for, well, yeah, but it's a U.S. thing. So, I've had to give other suppliers the DUNS number for a supplier and things like that. So, without me knowing what it is.

Chris Gammell: Okay. Yeah. So, I ended up asking about it on the consultant forum that I run. And there's been some really helpful answers. Some of the general things were, like, exporting, importing. Christina said, exporting, importing, and or doing business globally. Set up payment credit terms with suppliers before you can bid on government contracts. And then to accept government grants. And so, I didn't know anything about these. But then, like, it also, like, there's, like, a background check and all these other things. So, like, this is, like, part of the. So, I still need to dig into this, to be honest. Right. And I think it's just, like, a secondary feature, like, way to trust businesses, you know. Right. Yes. You know, me just as some dude being, like, yeah, I'm credit worthy. You know, like, look at my personal credit score. You know. And I think it's because you don't have a personal credit score. It's more of a, it's a business credit score kind of thing. Of course.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Interesting. Yeah. And that's an American thing. But I've had to, like, shuffle a DUNS number around occasionally from company to company.

Chris Gammell: So, you were basically passing it through.

Dave Jones: Oh, I was basically passing it through.

Dave Jones: Because there's some form required. Oh, what's this company's DUNS number? I don't know. Yeah. Here it is. Cut and paste, you know.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Right. Right.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: If other people have background in that, I'd love to hear about in the comments. Because I've, I don't know. Like, I haven't really taken it much further than that. I saw that and I was like, well, I guess I'm doing this at some other point. Right. But, yeah. But, yeah. I mean, so, like, but in that case, you know, then basically, just like how I get paid net 15, net 30, depending on who the client is of mine, then I could get, you know, and I'm sure people that have gone through DigiKey, Mauser, Pages, that same thing. It's not necessarily just a credit card. But it's also, like, you can be, like, put in your business number and then you get an invoice at the end of the month and you got to pay it, you know. And that's a simpler way of doing things. Not simpler. It's a credit way of doing things.

Dave Jones: Yep. And I've personally got a, I'm forced into giving lines of credit to my advertisers, for example. Like, like, some of them are 60 days, right? Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. They won't pay it, like, and at the end of the month. So, if they put an ad on my website, for example, right? Right. So, not only do I have to wait until the end of the month that that advert ran before I can invoice them, then it's another 60 days after that.

Chris Gammell: Good Lord.

Speaker ?: Right.

Dave Jones: Before they'll pay me. So, like, it's so far down that you forget all about it. Right. And, in fact, it's kind of a good surprise. Like, oh, you're looking at your bank account and all of a sudden, oh, where did all that money come from? Oh, yeah. I forgot about that.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. You know, that was months ago. That's a legitimate thing. And, like, I assume that usually the bigger, it's the bigger companies that usually get more credit.

Dave Jones: It's the media. Yeah. It's those, you know, the manufacturers who hire those ad agencies, they all run these, you know, they all absolutely insist that you have to use their terms. And it's, you know, it's their terms on the highway. Yeah. And it's annoying, whereas others are up front. You know, I, like, invoice them at the start of the month. So, the 1st of December, for example, I'll invoice them. And then, well, often it's delayed because I'm too lazy to do it, you know.

Chris Gammell: That's a different problem, Dave. Don't ask me. There's a different problem.

Dave Jones: Yeah, don't ask me how long it's, like, you know, because, like, on my list of stuff to do, like, sending out invoices is, like, you know. Like, it should be priority number one. Yeah. Right? Because that's where my income comes from, you know. But, like, it's just paperwork business bullshit, which I hate, you know. But what am I going to do? Hire someone to do it? Like, you know.

Chris Gammell: Well, you could, maybe. But, yeah, that's another cost that you have to think about that.

Dave Jones: Yeah, but it's only, like, 10 feet. Like, it's not a lot of work, you know. So, it's not like, you know, I can hire someone, like, for two hours. Two hours a coffee. Two hours a week or something.

Chris Gammell: Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: And that's the other thing. What do you do for those oddball jobs that take, you know, a few hours, like, that take an hour a week, you know. Like, I've got someone who does my logistics, handles my logistics and packing and shipping, or, you know, a good lot of it actually does the physical packing and shipping. And it's not that much work. Like, it's only a couple hours a week. But, you know, like, often, like, how do you find someone to do a job a couple hours a week for you? Especially if it needs to be on site. I totally agree with that.

Chris Gammell: I mean, that is a common problem across all businesses. Yep. Yeah. It's a trust thing, and you've got to find the right people, and, you know.

Dave Jones: And that's why I deliberately targeted, when I was looking for someone for that job, I deliberately targeted moms. Like, you know, stay-at-home moms. Oh, right.

Chris Gammell: People that might want to pick up some extra work.

Dave Jones: Yeah, and might want to pick up a few extra hours here and there during the day while the kids are at school. You know, they drop them off in the morning. They might have, you know, half a day to spare, you know, to come in. And that's the perfect kind of person, you know. They don't expect, you know, like a full-on, you know, three full days a week or something. You know, they're just happy with, you know, a few hours here and there. So.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, definitely. Yep.

Dave Jones: Hmm. But anyway, oh, it's, yeah. Business, huh? Yeah. Well, you know, maybe I could hire a, you know, maybe there's like a consulting, like a company that, like, you know, a book. What is it? No, it wouldn't be a bookkeeping company. What would it be? Like an appointment agency, you mean?

Chris Gammell: Like a.

Dave Jones: No, no, no. No, someone that would just, like, invoice your clients for you and do all that sort of, you know, secretarial type work.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I mean, that might be an in-house bookkeeper. I mean, generally, like a generalist, really. I mean, that's. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Someone who. Yeah.

Dave Jones: It's just. Yeah. So. And they don't need to be here to do it. Right. You just give them access to your systems and stuff like that. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: A virtual assistant as well. That could be another thing you could do.

Dave Jones: What's a virtual assistant?

Chris Gammell: So, like, someone who. So, like, the Amp Hour used to have a virtual assistant. She. You and I live in different places. Yeah, we did. Yeah. Oh, John. And she took care of some of her advertising stuff when we used to do that more. Oh, really? I don't remember that.

Dave Jones: Wow. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Her name was June. She was great. So. I like her. You know?

Dave Jones: It shows how much input I have on the business side of the Amp Hour. Yeah. It's okay.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: How many years ago was that? I can give you her name, maybe, you know? And that's the thing. It must be a letter.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. That's, like, how most people get it. You know, like, it's usually word of mouth. Yeah. That's something I'm realizing about business is just, like, how much of it's word of mouth because it's like, well, I got this problem and how'd you do it? Oh, well, I did it like this. Well, that sounds good. You know? Like, it's not always like that. Yeah. But, like, I'm really surprised that that's, you know, it's just so hard to. Imagine, like, you. You know, so you're looking for a new assistant or, you know, it could be as simple as, like, as simple as. It could be, you know, like, the situation where it's like, you want to find a PCB designer, right? And if you, it's. Right. You know, if you ask a friend who, you know, who they use for a PCB design last and they are like, well, do you like their work? Yeah, they did great work. Everything worked out well. Everything worked out great. Like, and then it's like, okay, now I'm going to go over to the site where there's 500 PCB designers and I have to go and try and search through them. Yeah. And then, like, it might not work out. Like, I'm probably going to, like, trust the friend first. And, like, that's. Exactly. Of course. It's just how it goes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hmm. Yeah. Business sucks. Well, you know, it has its own unique challenges. Like, I think. I don't think you'd be happy working for other people right now.

Dave Jones: No, exactly. I'd never go back working for others again. Yeah. It's a. I would encourage everyone to, you know, start their own business or at least have a go. I mean, maybe. At least have a side business. Like, not, you know, we've talked about, you know, the risk thing. But, you know, most small businesses go under. What is it? You know, 80% or something fail within the first. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: It's like a full time thing. Yeah. Maybe. But. Yeah. People who go out and get a loan. I think that, like, Tindy selling is, like, a great way to dip your toe in. Like.

Dave Jones: Yep.

Chris Gammell: My friend Bart is selling on Tindy. And, like, you know, he's doing, like, a lot of hand assembly. And it's like, you know, like, you get to that point where you're like, yeah, do I really want to be doing this? He still wants to do it. Yeah. And it's like. It's low run. And it makes sense. But, like. You know.

Chris Gammell: Well, I used to get. But, like, where's that threshold then? You know.

Dave Jones: Well, that's it. I used to get, you know, small, well, smallish batches up to a couple of hundred made by a guy in his garage. He just hand assembled them. He didn't have a pick and place machine. He just. You know. He was the pick and place machine. He was the pick and place machine. You know. And he did quite a good job. And it was literally in his garage. You know. And I just. And where did I find him? Usenet. You know. I found him on the Oz electronics group. I just put an ad. You know. This was way. You know. This was before all the blog stuff and everything. And I went. You know. Because that's where you chatted. Right. That's the. That was the forum. That's how you got it done. Yeah. That was the place to ask. So I asked you. Look. Does anyone know someone who can assemble, you know, a hundred boards for me? And, you know. And the guy saw it. Because he was on the forum. And he saw it and said. Yeah. Hey. I can do that for you. You know. Nice. And I went. Okay. How much? Yep. Okay. Yeah. And it turns out he just does it in his garage with a HACO soldering iron. You know. Fine.

Chris Gammell: That's awesome. What era was this? Was this through hole parts? Or was this SMT as well? No.

Dave Jones: No. This was a surface mount.

Chris Gammell: Okay. Cool.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So he'd place all the surface mount parts. He'd drag solder the chips. And he'd. You know.

Chris Gammell: Wow. All right.

Dave Jones: And he'd charge you per joint. It was like a cent per joint or something.

Chris Gammell: Oh. Really?

Dave Jones: Yeah. Nice. Like. Because he was really fast and efficient. So he knew how much time it takes him to. You know. If he knew. Like. He just counted up the number of joints on the board. And that's. You know. And then added a little padding number. And that's how much he charged. You know.

Chris Gammell: That's amazing.

Speaker ?: Yeah. I mean.

Dave Jones: It's. But. But it's like. It scales really well.

Chris Gammell: Right. I mean. Like. Yeah. It makes. Makes a lot of sense.

Dave Jones: But. Well. The thing like that. Is. The good thing about that. Is. You know. You have accurate data. On how fast you can assemble. How fast you can do each joint.

Chris Gammell: It all takes is a stopwatch. Yeah.

Dave Jones: And. Yeah. Simple. And just do it. Five times. Right. And you know how long it takes. So you can accurately charge clients. Right. Exactly. There's no hidden things going wrong with that business. That business is guaranteed to make money. Right. As long as you charge an adequate price.

Chris Gammell: I feel like that's how like a lot of textbooks are written too. It's like well if you have a hundred widgets makers making a five hundred widgets per hour and they require four dollars a day or whatever. It's like okay whatever. Right. You do a straight line approximation and you're done. Sure. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Whereas we've talked about that before. Whereas you know. Like the consulting business is like. Okay. I need to design something. Lots of things can go wrong. So you've got to put all that big padding in there.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Right.

Dave Jones: So you don't know how much padding to put in. And that's you know. It's even if you've got you know a decade's worth of experience doing consulting jobs and then padding out things. You know. You can just get one bad job which just swamps you. And you just. Exactly. You know. All that stuff you didn't expect and you're going to make a loss on that. And you just got to eat it. Yep. You know. Yep. So that actually padding reminds me coming back to the cash flow thing and bootstrapping a business. Right. Bootstrapping. We've talked about this. Right. You put in you know and a small amount of money to buy parts for 10 boards. Right. And then you sell those 10 boards and make a profit. You put the profit back in. Right. To have a truly.

Chris Gammell: That is the cash pad then. Right. Yeah. The profit becomes the cash pad. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Exactly. But there's a reason that if I've done an extensive video on this on you know how to price and margin your products. Right. It's actually very popular. I think a couple hundred thousand views. And we can link that in. Chris.

Chris Gammell: Sure. Yeah. I've got. I'm taking notes as we go man. I take. Remember me. I take notes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. And you hire people to take in Scotland to take care of stuff for us. I used to. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. You used to. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: I think I vaguely remember that now.

Chris Gammell: That's good Dave. That is just completely invisible to your eyes.

Dave Jones: Yeah. I just turn up and go welcome to the amp hour. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: The pure talent folks. The pure talent.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Right. Oh dearity. Anyway. Yes. So there's a. Like I came up. You know. The average. Like the number. The industry standard number is like two and a half times. Right. So something costs you a hundred bucks. You need to sell it for two fifty. Right. And there's. Right. And there's an additional reason for that. Which I. I don't think I went into in the video. Is that. If you want to run an entirely bootstrapped. Business. You need to make more than two times. Oh yeah. Like there's no point making a 20. A 10 or 20 percent profit. Because then you won't. Like. If you make 10 boards. For example. And you make 10 percent profit. Well. You've only got enough profit to buy one more board.

Chris Gammell: Right. Right. Actually. That's a great way to think about it. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Right. So you've got it. But if you double your money. You can make another 10 boards. At least. So that's why. Like a two and a half times figure. Is a good figure. Because then. You know. Like overhead and other expenses. And you know.

Chris Gammell: I've actually. I've actually amended that. I think for. So I think people were starting out. If you. If you can get it. I think. You know. So like all pricing is elastic. Right. That's kind of the thing. Oh yeah. Economists like talking about. But if you can get 4x. Go for 4x. Like that is totally. No. Of course. Totally. But I.

Dave Jones: You know. But two and a half times. Makes a sort of like a minimal viable.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Business kind of thing. You know. Right. Basically. If you're. If you're under that. You're. You know. You shouldn't even be in the business. You know.

Chris Gammell: But. You're going to. You're going to. You're going to have some troubles. Yeah.

Dave Jones: But I'm. I'm not making some of that. But I'm not making that. On some of the stuff. I. I sell. You know. I sell at a smaller. So not technically not manufacturing them. You know. What do you mean technically not manufacturing?

Chris Gammell: Are you charging per joint?

Dave Jones: But. You know. So. Yeah. But that's. That's another way to look at it. Right. Is that if you make a hundred boards. And you. Double your money. You can make another a hundred boards. Yeah. I like that. But if you don't double your money. Right.

Chris Gammell: And then like. So. So the 2.5x. It's like. The first X. The first one X. Is the boards themselves. The next one X. Yes. To make the next set of boards. And the 0.5x. Is because you probably messed some up. You know. That's right. Maybe you want to eat once in a while too.

Dave Jones: But. But if you're not making a hundred percent profit. Then in theory. The more you do it. You're guaranteed to go out of business. You're guaranteed to asymptote towards zero. Yeah. Income. Right. You're guaranteed. Like. You just can't. You know. Like. You need the additional cash to come in from somewhere. So. Yeah. Yeah. So. Yep. Don't let your business asymptote towards zero folks. That's good. That's good advice. Pro tip. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Dave says. Make some money. Dollar dollar bills y'all.

Dave Jones: Anyway. Yeah. It's. It's. You know. All this business stuff is. Yeah. It's. It's fascinating. It's why people do MBAs and business calls. I'm sure you learn all this crap.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I think that's. I think that's the problem though. Is that like. So I think about the people who do MBAs. You know. I have a friend that actually just started an MBA. And. He loves it. And it's. But it's like. Like. But all this stuff he's doing too. It's like. It's going to be very. It's very targeted towards like. You know. Monster businesses. Because he's going to be. Yeah. All right. For. Fortune 500. Fortune 100 companies.

Dave Jones: Exactly. And it's like. Big formal startups. Yeah. Sure. Big cashed up. Sure. You know. That are. Sort of. You know. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: They raised hundreds of millions of dollars. Or whatever. Yeah. And it's like. Yeah. Yeah. And that makes sense. And I think that's a very specific thing. What we're talking about is more like. Practical business. Knowledge. You know what I mean. Like.

Dave Jones: You're right.

Chris Gammell: If there was one of those. Yep. As in a degree. Like first off. You wouldn't need the piece of paper at that point. I think that's the real thing. The real way to get this knowledge. Is to. Do what Dave's doing. You know. Yeah. Right. Sell a bunch of crap. And you know. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Try and fail. And that's how a lot of people learn it. But. You know. If they're actually. It's not. Not that I'm failing.

Dave Jones: Folks. No. No. No.

Chris Gammell: That's not what we mean. But like. Just dealing with the stress of everyday business stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And you think. I'd love to hear about it. You know. Honestly. Like. I don't know any of those. So.

Dave Jones: But not. They're not always applicable to your. Every business is different. You know. If you think there's one set of rules. That. You know. You can operate your business by. You're kidding yourself. You know. Not all manufacturing businesses are the same. Not. You know. Not. Not everyone wants to turn their business into a big conglomerate. Right. Sure. Some people are just happy to have a nice business that brings in a hundred thousand dollars a year. They don't want to grow their business and go. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Just a hundred thousand. Just a small. You know. Chump change. You know.

Speaker ?: You know.

Dave Jones: But no. Like. They. They. They. They just want to replace their job. Right. They just want to replace their job. And. But be their own boss. Yeah. But they don't want to grow the business. And if they stay a single. A one man band for the rest of their life. They're happy. Yeah. And there's nothing wrong with that.

Chris Gammell: That's true. That's true.

Dave Jones: So. Yeah. Don't feel as though that you have to grow your business. Right. Sometimes you don't. So. I know. I know that's very anti. But. But. That's. You know. If you go. You know. But. You won't learn that at MBA school. Right. That's like. Oh no. No. Like. That's. That's a defeatist attitude.

Chris Gammell: Right.

Dave Jones: How can you be in business if you don't want to be hugely successful. You know. Right. That's just. It's nuts.

Chris Gammell: So. Like. So. What we. What Dave's talking about is not an MBA. It's not a master of business. Administration. Yeah. It's an MLBA. A master of lifestyle business. As. What? Lifestyle business. That's a thing? That's what they call them. Yeah. That's what you're. That's exactly what you're talking about. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Really? Oh yeah. You can do a master of lifestyle business. No. No. No.

Chris Gammell: No. The degree is not actually. Oh. Okay. Right.

Dave Jones: I was going to say. Yeah. No. No. No. That's what we're both talking about though. It's a lifestyle business.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: It's like building a lifestyle business. It's like comfortable. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of interesting problems, but not like a growth business.

Dave Jones: But it's very anti-entrepreneurial. So if you go watch the entrepreneurial channels, right, they'll tell you, oh, no, you don't want a lifestyle business. You want a business that you grow and you build and then you just walk away from and it just generates income for the rest of your life. You know, that gravy train. So you set up some online web store where you have never touched a thing. You just set up the store and you just, you know, or you set up 10 different web stores, right? There's courses you can do, how to become rich and successful, you know, setting up these web stores with, you know. And then you've never handled a, you know, you've never operated a tape gun in your life to seal a box, you know.

Chris Gammell: Right, right.

Dave Jones: And yes, you can become rich and successful and have income for the rest of your life. You can also fail miserably, you know.

Chris Gammell: Yep, yep.

Dave Jones: And like, yeah.

Chris Gammell: There is one book that I was reading that I liked that is about scale. The book's called Scale. Scale, yeah. And there's another one by the way.

Dave Jones: I tried to read that and I wasn't like, you give me all these recommendations and I do try to read some of them. And that was one I tried to read and I was like, oh, I yawn, you know.

Chris Gammell: Well, here's the things I like about them. Like, so like the ones, because we're talking about business this episode, the thing that's good about it is like the, and the thing that like I ultimately pull out of all these things. And then Michael, who's been on the show before from Program Electronics Academy, he talked to me about this a lot too, is the hit by a bus test, right? I think that's actually a decent test for all things business because it's like, if I get hit by a bus tomorrow, my business goes away. You know what I mean? And it's like, so building a business versus building just like a, you know, a thing that's based on skill, like a consultancy, like that's a big difference. And I think the people that are trying to build a business, you need to ask that question. Like, if you got hit by a bus, would your company keep going? And if the answer is no, then you're not doing good, you know, like, and there's lots of resources to it.

Dave Jones: No, I'm not. No, because that says that a lot.

Chris Gammell: I knew you weren't going to go for this because your business is based on you, Dave.

Dave Jones: Because there's nothing inherently wrong with a lifestyle business. If that's what you want, look, if you're worried about getting hit by a bus and not being able to work anymore, you have insurance for that, right? You have income protection insurance for that, right? You can buy that security, right?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, but then the business is dead too, right? So that's the idea. Yes, you're right.

Dave Jones: Yes, the business is right.

Chris Gammell: Your family will be okay. But the idea is the whole hit by a bus test is that for someone who, like, wants to have a business that's not necessarily completely dependent upon them, that it allows them to step outside the business, go on vacation, do all the things. Like, you know, when you go on vacation. Which is fine. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: When you go on vacation, you have trouble because you basically are like, oh, I have to do all these videos. I have to produce content. Right, exactly. And this would basically.

Dave Jones: But still, that doesn't inherently mean that you shouldn't have that business, that those businesses shouldn't exist, that the only form of business that should exist is one way that you can walk away from. I mean, that's just, you know, that's just ludicrous. Half of the businesses out there are one-man bands, you know?

Chris Gammell: I'm just saying I like it as a construct for thinking about business. Yeah, it is.

Dave Jones: But it's not necessarily the only path. But I don't want people to think that unless they scale their business and grow it and pass the bus test, that anything else is not a worthy business.

Chris Gammell: Right.

Dave Jones: Like, that's just ludicrous.

Chris Gammell: I agree with that. I think it's just more about, like, the contrasting piece they usually have is like, well, you know, if you have a business that's completely dependent on you, oftentimes it's, you know, you're working long hours, you're working weekends, that kind of thing. And if you want to get outside of that, that's where that bus test thing kind of starts to make sense.

Dave Jones: Oh, sure. You know, it depends on what you want. Like, if you, you know, like, if business is not exciting, if it's just a job for you, if your company is just a job and it's not something, you know, I love doing my stuff and hanging out in the lab and making content. Right? Like, I was talking to David about this the other day. Like, sometimes I wish that just, like, like, I was just purely 100% funded by the fans and I didn't have to, like, even though I've had a kit, I've had a kit business for 25 years, I think. Something like that. Oh. Right? And I kind of enjoy doing it.

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah. Thank you.

Dave Jones: I enjoy doing it.

Chris Gammell: I know.

Dave Jones: And, yeah, but, like, ultimately, like, sometimes I just wish that none of that existed and I just had Patreon income or something and I was just free to make content with no other worries in the world, you know? And, yeah, sometimes, you know, that'd be nice.

Chris Gammell: Well, I think that's kind of like the same thing I was talking about. That's, you know, kind of akin to a software business where there's not as much overhead, right? And so you have more cash freed up, you have more of the stuff freed up. Hardware businesses are just different, you know?

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah, totally.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah, so I'm trying to run, you know, I'm trying to do all sorts of stuff, you know, to kind of make my business a bit. Yeah. Well, and the good thing is, is that it makes the multiple sources of income makes my business a bit bulletproof, you know, from that side of things, apart from cash flow ebbs and flows, you know? But, ultimately, at the end of the day, you know, if I've got money coming from Patreon, if I've got money coming from advertisers, if I've got money coming from kit sales, you know, and stuff like that, then, yeah, it's, you know, it's a more bulletproof business. Yeah, definitely.

Chris Gammell: How are you feeling, man? We get some of the business stuff out? We're feeling better? Feeling great, as always. Good, good, good.

Dave Jones: A bit warm, because I can't run the air con in here, the new lab is like, yeah, no, it comes through. And there's a noise, I'm looking at my waveform at the moment, and there's a base level noise. I think I need to silence my computer a bit more, and the acoustics in the new lab, the lighting in the new lab. Moving a video lab is a pain in the ass. It's going to take another month to dick around with. Like, I've got more lights coming in today. I've got to install, you know, more lights. It's not just a matter of more lights. They've got to be the correct type. They've got to be in the correct locations. They've got to not be mixed with other stuff.

Chris Gammell: And, oh, it's just terrible. So maybe the content business wouldn't be all, you know, sunshine and rainbows either.

Dave Jones: It's not all sunshines and roses. Yeah, yeah. Yep. But I kind of like the new start in a fresh thing in the new lab. I think I might make this a thing. I might, like, move the lab every two years and just, you know, start fresh. Like a hermit crab. Right. It's, you know, it's, yeah, I'm kind of liking the sort of, you know, fresh feel to things. Yeah, man. So.

Chris Gammell: It's good. You can keep on growing, you know, or just keep growing sideways.

Dave Jones: No, no. I'm not growing. I'm just, yeah, going around in circles. Yeah. It's all right. Circling the wagons for the. Yeah. For the inevitable onslaught.

Chris Gammell: Yep.

Dave Jones: Oh, dearie. Anyway.

Chris Gammell: Well, I have a piece of news that I remember, like, halfway through we were talking about stuff. Yeah. Speaking of cash flow and other things that I will be announcing elsewhere and I'll probably, I might even throw a little thing up front. But I'm running, I'm running a conference in Chicago. Wait, tell us. It's called KiCon or KiCon, depending on your flavor. But basically it'll be the first KiCad user focused conference ever. And it's going to be in April in Chicago, Illinois. It'll actually be out of my workspace.

Dave Jones: Wow, you're actually planning these things quite a ways ahead.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. I got to do it, man. And I think it's before all the craziness of conference season starts up, which is good.

Dave Jones: Oh, okay. There's a conference season, is there? Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Kind of like May to September seems like the high times of stuff.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: And so hopefully getting out ahead of that. But the thing that I wanted to mention to the audience here is that we're looking for speakers first and foremost. So it'll be on a weekend or like probably Friday, Saturday. We're still trying to figure out the exact dates. It'll probably be the last weekend of April. But the first thing that I need is a bunch of speakers. We already have a bunch of speakers. So Wayne, the project lead for KiCad. Mike Osmond said he'd be giving a talk. Peter will be giving a talk. Tom and Orson, two of the guys that work at CERN, will be coming over. All of those connections are paying off now, are they? A little bit. Yeah. Dave Vandenvoud, who's been on the show before. He does KiCost and KiField and Skittle and a bunch of tools. So he'll be coming in too. And so the whole thing, maybe I can read you some of the talk titles. Basically, I started planning this thing with a bunch of people. And I started like writing out like these jokey titles for myself. Right. And I started getting so incredibly excited about them. I like got myself excited based on the titles. Yeah, yeah, of course. It's really stupid. But it's like things. No, no, no, that's great. Well, it's like because of like the manufacturing piece too, right? Like, you know how it is with Altium. Like, it's like, it's very integral to the manufacturing. And I think that, you know, especially with the open source tool that was more focused on getting the tool out, you know, thinking about how to actually make it a manufacturing tool as well is important. So things like getting started with Python scripting, best practices for manufacturing, how to collaborate using KiCAD, revision control for your next board, 3D practices for library management at a small business, right? So we've talked about that on the show before. You know, how do you actually maintain a library, especially when you have more than one engineer?

Dave Jones: I thought these were exciting titles.

Chris Gammell: Sorry. Fast 3D model creation using Blender or whatever your tool of choice is. Building out tool chains for on-site board fabrication. Gerber hacks. Artwork and KiCAD. Deep cuts.

Dave Jones: See, Gerber hacks is better. Like, you know, if I was looking at the roster of these talks, I'd be going to the Gerber hacks. Okay, okay. Right, you know, come on. How about this one?

Chris Gammell: BGA breakouts can be a breeze. That was another one. That was like, you know, like BGA breakout type of things, you know?

Dave Jones: No, it needs to be BGA breakout ball buster or something. I don't know. Like, come on. That's great. Be a bit more creative.

Chris Gammell: Hey, these were like things that I wrote up in five minutes, but like you are welcome to give a talk and come over and also learn to KiCAD a little better and, you know, do all these things. But yeah, I'm really excited about it and mostly just, you know, getting together with people and the fact that it's KiCAD is obviously of personal interest, but it's also just about electronics. You know, they're pretty intermeshed these days. And so just getting together with a bunch of electronics nerds and talking about this stuff should be really exciting.

Dave Jones: So is it expensive to run a – oh, no, you're getting the space, aren't you? That's right.

Chris Gammell: Well, they're going to charge for the space. I think I get a slight discount.

Dave Jones: Oh, okay. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: But I mean compared to doing it like in San Francisco, like at a place, yeah, it's as much cheaper than that.

Dave Jones: It's not in a big swanky hotel somewhere, conference center somewhere, right? Right. Right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, and this is going to be in Chicago at the workspace I'm out of. They've got like probably spaces for 250 people and – but I'm hoping –

Dave Jones: I was going to say, how many people are you expecting?

Chris Gammell: I don't know yet. We're still trying to figure that out too about – Right. You know, it'll depend on how many people submit talks and all the other things too. Right.

Dave Jones: And this is a paid-for event?

Chris Gammell: Yep. Yeah, it'll be like low-cost tickets, kind of like Supercon was. And any money that's left over at the end will just be going to the project.

Dave Jones: How much were tickets to Supercon? I don't know.

Chris Gammell: Supercon tickets, I think, were $128 if you got the early bird price and then $256 otherwise. But I think we'll probably be a little lower than that. It'll depend. Like we're still figuring that stuff out. There's no tickets for sale yet. There is a sign-up. If you don't want to give a talk and you just want a ticket, there's a sign-up for that. But we'd love to hear if people want to give talks.

Dave Jones: Is there a budget for getting big-name speakers in or something? You know, like you're paying for their flights and accommodation or something or anything like that? There is. Like would you get Howard Johnson in to talk about high-speed design or something like that? You know.

Chris Gammell: I don't think he uses KiCad, so probably not. No.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Like someone who's in that business of like, you know, who has a big rep of giving, you know. Right.

Chris Gammell: Well, I mean, there's all the project leads and stuff like that. So that's big names in the small pond. So, yeah. So they're coming in off their own bat. Are you asking if we have money to bring you in, Dave? Is that what you're really asking? No, no, no, no. I can.

Dave Jones: I'll just sort out cash flow issues and I'll be there. That's right.

Chris Gammell: There we go. Yeah. Right.

Dave Jones: Yeah. But like, but is there like, is that a thing? Like, or is it too small yet? I think we're probably too small for that kind of thing. Yeah. Right.

Chris Gammell: You know, first thing, still getting our footing. Right. But very excited about it. And so we're also going to make it a social thing too, of like, you know, have like a hack session for Python scripting and, you know.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: You know, also. Will there be badges? There may be badges. Yeah. Yeah. They'll probably be artsy and fun.

Dave Jones: All right. Yeah. Great. Yeah. Excellent.

Chris Gammell: I'm really, I'm excited and scared and, you know, mostly excited.

Dave Jones: But you, Mr. Event Organizer.

Chris Gammell: Ah, yeah. Well. Extraordinaire. It's not my first time. Hopefully, hopefully it's not a habit I get into though.

Dave Jones: But who knows? There might be a business running that.

Chris Gammell: Ah, not at the. There might be a lifestyle business. There, maybe, but I don't think that's the kind of business that I want. Right. It's, you know, like the big conferences, like there is money, I suppose, in like the, you know, those academic conferences where you have to pay $2,000 to go there. And then there's sponsorships on top of that. It's like, okay, well, where's all that money going? But like I said, all the money that's left over from this is going to the project. So.

Dave Jones: Well, see, that's the thing. Like the yearly show, the electronic show here, here in Australia, right? You might think that's run by some industry mob or something. No, it's just run by some private events. Marketing, you know, that's their, that's their business. They do events like this. They saw an opportunity. Okay. This is a niche field. We can run this event. We can charge. Well, no, well, they don't charge people to come because passes are free pretty much. So, you know, but they charge the store holders. And by that doing that, they can, okay, if we get enough X stores, we can make a profit. And I, you know. Right. And, and then the industry's happy because they've, they've got their trade show, you know. Sure. So like, yeah.

Chris Gammell: That's great. Yeah.

Dave Jones: So maybe, maybe, maybe you can become that. You can become the, you know, the tech, the, you know, the go-to-in guy that just runs tech events.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I don't think I want to do that. But, but I mean, I do like getting people together. So that's, that's something I love doing. So I think that's a great way to, to get things started. There you go. I told you.

Dave Jones: It's a lifestyle business.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Right. Yeah. So like I said, if people are even like remotely interested, put in a talk proposal. Cool. And yeah, we'll see how that goes. All right. Excellent. Well, is there, oh, oh, that was the last thing I wanted to mention about it. Sorry. Last thing I promise. Because I saw there was a, a Neoden 4 thing. I'm hoping to do like a live demo using a Neoden, like how to actually go from KiCad to a Neoden as well. Right. And actually do like onsite demos and stuff like that. So that's like my goal. Because I think there's a lot of fear around that. Of course. There was actually a good, there actually is a new, so Neoden actually now has a USA branch, which I did not realize. And their folks actually, they made a single video so far, but it actually is very, very useful for getting those things set up. And so that's been great for me.

Dave Jones: Excellent.

Chris Gammell: And.

Dave Jones: So they exist to help people set up their units and stuff like that. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I mean, they're like a US based distributor. I think they take care of importing now. Actually support. And then they, and then they also do some content stuff.

Dave Jones: Right. So you can buy it locally. So you can buy it locally from them now, I guess. Yeah. I think so. Right. Got it. Yep. Yeah. I think they were, when I was at the show here in Sydney, they were, I think it was the American Neoden supplier that was there.

Chris Gammell: Oh, interesting. Okay.

Dave Jones: Yes. Yeah. I remember they were on the video, but I didn't. Yep. Yep. I think they were American. Yeah. Yeah. So there you go.

Chris Gammell: The last board I did was, it worked, but there was a lot of setup woes and I think this will help a lot. So yeah. Got it. More picking place stuff in my future. I've heard the software sucks. It's not super intuitive, but coming from the KiCad world, I'm willing to deal with a little bit of that to get the underlying goodness. So that's what I'm usually going for.

Dave Jones: Got it.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Cool bananas.

Chris Gammell: So we had a ton of stuff. Oh, and sorry. So this is not KiCad based now. We are now on Pandora, we should mention. We just recently learned.

Dave Jones: Oh, we're allowed to say that, are we? We are.

Chris Gammell: I don't use Pandora, so I haven't checked. I don't either. But there is a press release now from Pandora. There's like an early beta and we can send a link to that. So people, I'll try and link in the beta.

Dave Jones: Oh, so it's not part of the, so if you search the website, we're not there?

Chris Gammell: I don't think they're actually, yeah, I don't think there's actually publicly available yet. So people can sign up if they're interested in doing that. The one thing people pointed out to me and it's like, the reason I think that this is becoming a bigger deal is that Pandora and Spotify and a couple other music services are basically like not being used towards data caps. So like a carrier in the States might have a deal with Pandora or Spotify and be like, if you're going through these services, yeah, the data is just included. And it's like, ugh. That neutrality, people. This is exactly what we were freaking talking about. But anyways.

Dave Jones: Is this a bad thing? Sorry, I don't get it.

Chris Gammell: So basically this is like a service that says like you're basically giving priority services for because of these business deals.

Dave Jones: And you don't like that?

Chris Gammell: It's basically somewhat as a necessity because of data limits and things like that. I'm not a big fan of it. I mean like given what it is, it's like, okay, like if I don't have any other options.

Dave Jones: But it's better than getting nothing. It's better than getting nothing.

Chris Gammell: But like the problem is that it isn't that case in the first place.

Dave Jones: Yeah, but you're still free to choose who your provider is. That is correct. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Hmm. Yeah. All right. Excellent. We have a bunch of other links on the, a bunch of electronics links if people are interested in that kind of stuff. Yeah, because we didn't have many this week. We did a lot of business-y stuff. So, yeah. But, yeah, we'll be back to electronics next week. Maybe. Yeah. All right, man.

Dave Jones: You never know. We'll talk to you soon. Catch you next time.

Speaker ?: Bye. Thank you.